The KnoxSMUG is doing a photo a week challenge to help encourage our members to get out and create a photograph a week.  Each week will have a theme that the members can interpret  in their own way. The goal is just to think and create a photo.  You have one week (Saturday through Friday) to create your image and upload it to the KnoxSMUG smugmug.com site.  Each month we are going to get our fellow SMUG leaders to look at the images for that month and pick their favorites.

So as one of the leaders for KnoxSMUG, I'm participating as well and am going to update here with each of my entries. This weeks challenge was 'new'. 

If you are interested in participating in our challenge, please join the KnoxSMUG group.

I realized today that I need to put some more effort into my daily shots. Today's photo relates back to an earlier one. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to get at least 30 minutes of good activity a day (ie break a sweat) and to that end I have playing the 'Just Dance' game on the Wii. Well it turns out that Emma loves this game as well. Now she doesn't do that well on it, but she loves to dance with mommy & daddy. So it makes it fun to get up and dance for a while with Emma dancing with us.

So today's photo of the day was inspired by my beautiful daughter. She thought it would be great to take one of the bins for her toys and dump the toys on the ground, then use the bin as a hat.  What made this even funnier was when she put the hat over her face and said "Where's Daddy?" Then proceeded to play peek-a-boo with me from behind the bin.  I love that anything can be a toy to her. As adults we rarely take joy in the everyday things around us and forget to use our imaginations. Think of how much happier we would be if we would just take a few minutes to imagine and have fun throughout the day.

One of my favorite times of the day is when I get home from work. Today my daughter was so excited to see me she wanted to come out to my car as soon as I got home. Being a father is such an amazing experience. No one can tell you what it will be like or how much love you will have for your child. The first time I held Emma in the hospital moments after her birth was a life changing experience. Being called 'Daddy' is one of those things that defines me as a person and as a photographer. Thinking of my relationship with my daughter is my motivation for creating images for others.

Today's photo is one of those times of day that I love. Emma wanted to sit in my lap and watch Mickey. How can you say no to "Daddy, lap?"

Today was one of those days that I didn't shoot a lot with my Droid camera. Yesterday was a busy, fun filled day at the Imaging USA Expo. So I as already exhausted from wandering around the expo floor. Today I attended a workshop presented by Mark Wallace, www.snapfactory.com, @jmarkwallace on twitter. It was an amazing workshop. So back to my photo of the day, my frien, Steve, and I ended up at a little restaurant called Hot Diggity Dog. They had some of the best hot dogs I have ever had. I highly recommend the Texas dog and fries.
Sorry for the rambling, I'm really tired after driving back from Nashville and my brain has reached its shutdown point.

Today I had the opportunity to go the the Imaging USA Expo. The Expo floor was packed with photographers and exhibitors. It was an amazing experience and opportunity. I got to meet David Jay, Dane Sanders, and Tamara Lackey. I saw Scott Bourne, Zack and Jody Gray, Kevin Kubota, Sarah Petty, and Jerry Ghionis from afar on the Expo floor. I had a great time and really wished I would have been able to go to some of the classes.

So my wife and I have been playing the Wii a lot lately. It is a great interactive game system and Emma wants to play with us when ever we play. So this morning she grabbed a Wiimote and told me that she wanted 'Mario'. It was so cute and I thought I would share it. I love spending time with my family and playing the Wii gives us some quality family time. I highly recommend doing whatever you can to spend as much time with your family as you can.

We have had a Christmas Cactus for a couple of years and have not been able to get it to bloom any time near Christmas. This year we actually had buds on the cactus on Christmas day. My wife was extremely happy about this. I figured I would share a photo of the bloom in the middle of this cold wintery weather. This bloom reminds me that no matter what the circumstances are that beauty can be found if you look for it. While it is cold and dreary outside, this bloom is beautiful. So where do you look for beauty when there appears to be none around you?

Today's photo kinda fell out of the sky, literally. Here in East Tennessee we don't see a lot of snow. Well today we had a decent snow fall. Of course no one here knows how to drive in the snow, so only took me 1.5 hours to drive the normal 15 min drive. Snow fall here makes everyone go crazy. There were 9 cars in the ditches on the hill to my house with the back ends sticking in the road. So I did what any normal person would do, I parked my car and walked to my house. Nothing is worth wrecking your car or potential injuring yourself over trying to drive up a snowy/icy hill.

So it is cold outside today. In East Tennessee it was 18 degrees when I got in my car this morning. So I figured I would share a photo of my car's temperature display. Why would I choose this as my photo of the day, you might ask. Well, as I sat there let my car warm up I was thinking about attitudes and outward appearances of people. On a cold day like this, many people either want to go back to bed or are miserable and want to spread their misery. I thought about how this affects businesses and what my general attitude was towards my clients is. Am I the type of person that someone wants to open up to? Am I fun to be around? Do people enjoy getting their pictures taken by me? My goal is to make sure every person I come into contact with has a good experience with me, both in my personal life and my professional one. So no more letting situations control my attitude. I want to be the type of person that no matter what the situation is, I have a smile on my face and a cheerful attitude. Have a great day and remember to smile, it might warm someones day. :-)